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The UP is on the south shore of Lake Superior. It is part of Michigan, sometimes to the irritation of its inhabitants, who are known as Yoopers. There have been movements for statehood since the Peninsula became a mining and timber bonanza in the mid 1850's; this was not long after the local Ojibwa showed early explorers where the iron was. I remember tee shirts with "The State of Superior" on them in the 1960's!

The Mackinac Bridge connects us with the rest of Michigan. The UP has Lake Michigan to the south and the big lake (Superior) to the north.The peninsula is about 300+ miles long, east and west with smaller peninsulas on both coasts that jut out into their respective Great Lake. The Keweenaw Peninsula, where this photo was taken, is on the Lake Superior side and it is about 100 miles to Copper Harbor on its northern most point from the main Peninsula. US-41 runs from Copper Harbor, Michigan to Miami, Florida.

The Pasty (pronounced with a short "a" like "pass" rather than like "paste") has an interesting history. It is the national dish of Cornwall, and a standard in the diet of Cornish miners. The copper country of Michigan's Upper Peninsula had an influx of Cornish miners in the 1860s followed by a small wave of Finnish miners. The Finns adopted the Pasty as their standard meal so that when a larger wave of Finnish migration arrived in the 1890s, they found pastys as the standard dish for their Finnish brethren.

The buckets are similar to the one I carried in the mines and still have. There is a tray that fits into the top of the larger bottom can. The miners carried their lunch (usually a "Pasty" meat pie) in the tray. The bottom held tea. The miners would take several nails and drive them into a timber or lagging board in a ring pattern, put a candle stub in the center, and sit the bucket atop the ring of nails to warm up their tea.

I am betting the shift is getting ready to go below, not just coming up .... they are pretty clean. Even hard-rock mines result in dirty miners! Hoist signals were sent by electricity to the hoist room. Great photo!

On July 23rd, 1913 the miners at the Calumet and Hecla Mining Co. went on strike. On Christmas Eve of that year the striking miners and their families gathered on the second floor of the Italian Hall in Calumet to attend a party sponsored by the Ladies' Auxiliary of the Western Federation of Mineworkers.

Somebody yelled "Fire!" In the ensuing panic, seventy-three people died, including fifty-nine children. There was no fire. They never found out who yelled "fire" but it was commonly believed that it was an anti-union provocateur who wanted to disrupt the party.

It would be really difficult for family members coming down to the mine exit to find the correct husband, father or brother to pick up since nearly everyone there has such similar facial hair, clothing and accessories.

The man off to the side looks like Tom Edison and the lever next to him looks like the lever to start an old roller coaster, boy are those guys in for a ride. On a more serious note the miners are wearing oil lamps on their helmets, this picture is pre carbide lamp which was a heck of a lot brighter. Also that appears to be a speaking tube next to the standing gent, probably used to talk to the engine operator who could not see the mine car as it came up.

This photo brings to mind my two grandfathers, both from Poland around the turn of the century. One became a coal miner in Pennsylvania doing this same kind of hazardous, back-breaking labor and had both legs broken in a mine explosion but did eventually return to work the same job. One worked in a copper foundry in Ct. and died at work on a horrendously torrid July afternoon in 1925. Like these men pictured, they never complained but did what they felt they had to do to support their families and become Americans. Their children met in N.Y.C. and the rest is history, but none of their grandchildren ever had to work as hard as they did. I suspect we are all beneficiaries of our ancestors willingness to give all they had for our better lives. Be thankful for the sacrifices made by your ancestors and give them a grateful thought occasionally.

The guy all the way to the left is saying, "Please keep your hands, feet and arms inside the car until the ride has come to a complete stop. Please exit the ride by using either stairway. Enjoy the rest of your day at Hecla World."

Shorpy.com | History in HD is a vintage photo archive featuring thousands of high-definition images from the 1850s to 1960s. (Available as fine-art prints from the Shorpy Archive.) The site is named after Shorpy Higginbotham, a teenage coal miner who lived 100 years ago.